Green’s Dictionary of Slang

anything, or anyone, considered excellent, first-rate.

1733		Swift Life and Character Dean S--t n.p.: A protestant’s a special clinker. It serves for sceptic and free-thinker [M.] [F&H].
1836		Spirit of the Times (N.Y.) 27 Feb. 13/2: It would just take him to beat anything that Col. Johnson can start. He is a clinker, I tell you.
1867		Sportsman 24 Sept. 2/1: Notes on News [...] [S]cions of our Peases and our Backhouses shall run ‘clinkers’ on the turf, and speculative ‘Friends’ welcomed among the ranks of ‘leviathan’ bookmakers.
1877		J. Greenwood Dick Temple I 188: My eyes, that’s a clinker.
1887		World (N.Y.) 16 June 6/4: The work of the ex-Jerseyman was certainly remarkable [...] In the points he also proved a ‘clinker,’ not a hit being made of his delivery in the five innings he pitched.
1880		Bulletin (Sydney) 24 Apr. 2/2: Flaneur won the Normanby Stakes at Flemington [...] beating such as Palmyra, winner of the Maribymong Plate, and other real clinkers.
1889		C. Deveureux Venus in India I 85: By God, she is a clinker and no mistake!
1898		W.T. Goodge ‘How We Drove the Trotter’ at www.poemhunter.com 🌐 For the pace it was a clinker, and they had no chance of trying.
1902		Bulletin Reciter 1880-1901 181: We had a mare in trainin’ / Dat I always used to ride; / And I knew she was a clinker, / Though she never had been tried.
1905		Marvel III:55 2: Deuce take me, Archie, that was a clinker you gave him!
1913		C. Mackenzie Sinister Street I 165: She was a clinker.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 297: With his mailed gauntlet he brushed away a furtive tear and was overheard by those privileged burghers who happened to be in his immediate entourage to murmur to himself: – God blimey if she ain’t a clinker, that there bleeding tart.
1928		Harrisburg Sun. Courier (PA) 26 Aug. 10/2: It’s a diamond solitaire ring [...] ‘Well,’ I says, ‘that is sure one swell clinker’.
1936		(con. 1830s–60s) ‘Miles Franklin’ All That Swagger 286: [of a horse] ‘She’s a clinker,’ said Uncle William.
1940		M. de la Roche Whiteoak Heritage (1949) 119: [of a horse] Isn’t he a clinker?
1997		Share Slanguage.